THEIR VIEW: Lots of stupid questions

The last set of questions prosecutor Rachel Mitchell put to Christine Blasey Ford may have been the most remarkable. She asked if Ford knew that this process - five-minute intervals of questions - was not the best way to determine the credibility of a sexual-assault survivor’s account. One might have construed that as self-defense: Don’t blame me for finding out nothing! But it also raises the question as to why a professional prosecutor would agree to be used, to be labeled an “assistant” as Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., so insultingly put it, to participate in a farce not designed to get at the truth.

Mitchell then insinuated that somehow Ford should have known how to get a forensic interview, remarkably putting the onus on the victim to figure out the prosecutor’s job.

At any rate, what was obvious is that Mitchell spent virtually no time challenging Ford on her memory of the attack. How could she? It was entirely credible and had all the ear-markings of a truthful witness statement. It was a powerful rebuttal to President Donald Trump and snide Republican lawmakers who chose not to believe Ford. Their hired attorney had no way to challenge the account. No mistaken-identity defense is going to work.

Mitchell also revealed through utterly irrelevant lines of questions about how Ford found an attorney, who paid for her to take a polygraph test, who paid for security and other events not in the least probative of whether the attack occurred.

Instead, it was her lawyers providing the polygraph and a bunch of sympathetic Americans setting up GoFundMe sites for an assault survivor.

As for the Republican senators, the 10 mute male Judiciary Committee members and one overbearing, grumpy chairman looked as weak as Ford looked strong. Republicans are playing a political game. Ford was relating a searing life experience.

Trump of all people should know what a media disaster it was for them.